8 people killed in Thailand’s Deep South

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After a string of high-profile attacks in Thailand’s Deep South in January and February – see here, here, and here – the Secretary-General of the National Security Council Tawin Pleansri stated in early March conceded that the violence is increasing. Now, AFP:

Eight people have been killed over a 24-hour period in a series of shootings across Thailand’s restive deep south, police said on Wednesday.

The deaths come a week after the government said violence was escalating in the insurgency-plagued region, following a string of gun and bomb attacks.

A Buddhist teacher, aged 52, was shot dead in Songkhla province early on Tuesday morning while working his second job on a rubber plantation, police said.

Another Buddhist plantation worker was shot dead, and his wife injured, on their way to a work in the same province, also on Tuesday morning.

Later seven gunmen opened fire at a village teashop in Pattani province, killing three Muslim men aged between 42 and 60, followed by a drive-by shooting in nearby Yala province that killed a 69-year-old Muslim man.

Police said a group of armed men opened fire on another teashop in Narathiwat province on Tuesday night, killing two Buddhist men and injuring another three.

BP: That is four Muslims and four Buddhists.

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